Blair Cleared

[<TROUBLE^MAKER>]

Blair&#39;s going to be the EU president in not to long down the road.

[Rat Faced]

He lost that job well before he went to war in Iraq.

[j2k4]

Originally posted by lynx@30 January 2004 - 17:58
Give it time, J2, we&#39;ll get there eventually.

I&#39;m sure, lynx, but "eventually" seems to only mean a few days, these days. (I&#39;m sure that phrase will never roll off a tongue with any grace )

I don&#39;t think either camp&#39;s blanket will cover the mess; you all know which way I lean, but while Blair&#39;s apparent "victory" is (I fear) too complete, the reaction of the Beeb proper doesn&#39;t square with that of it&#39;s staff apart from the Kelly story or Hutton&#39;s investigation.

If the hierarchy has fallen, and Gilligan is gone, what have the rest of these BBC personnel got to say that would bear on events?

It is apparent the recipe has gone awry-

[lynx]

The House of Commons Liaison Select Committee will meet next week. Among the questions they will be asking will be whether Tony Blair still believes that the intelligence about Saddam being able to launch WMD in 45 minutes was reliable. This is the same question which Michael Howard (leader of the opposition) has asked several times over the past few weeks but has received no reply, other than to wait for the outcome of the Hutton report.

Now that the Hutton report is out, Tony Blair has virtually demanded an apology from Michael Howard, yet this subject was ruled by Hutton as being outside the terms of reference. Blair will HAVE to answer to the Select Committee, assuming they don&#39;t bottle out.

[Cram]

Now we all know why he is called Teflon Tony

@Biggles (Hoon) I reserve my judgement on that man.

[Biggles]

The pressure for an independant enquiry into the justification for going to war appears to be mounting. The question regarding intelligence quality in particular causing concern. TB may have won Hutton, but he is losing popular support.

I watched the Channel 4 documentary into the Iraq war last night and the paucity of good intelligence seems to have been a recurrent theme. One US army captain said, at the risk of not making it past captain, our intelligence was useless - sometimes worse than useless. (I haven&#39;t used quotation marks as I can&#39;t remember the exact words but I think I convey the gist of his sentiment)

They made 50 bombing attempts on key figures based on "intelligence". All 50 hit the wrong targets killing innocent civilians mainly women and children.

There would appear to be mounting evidence that much of the intelligence regarding WMD activity came from Iraqi opposition based abroad. If there is an enquiry I think one question that will be asked is " did anyone actually weigh this evidence up against the agenda that these people were working to"? If they did (and I don&#39;t believe for one moment professional intelligence people didn&#39;t) what became of this analysis? Did it founder on the rocks of political agendas? If so we are right back to the allegations Gilligan made.

The documentary was both interesting and depressing. I am sure it would not meet the approval of those who were pro-war regardless of whether WMD existed or not. It concentrated on the carnage and brutality of war (and consequently made for unpleasant viewing). It included a lot of embedded footage I had not seen before including the pre-Baghdad assault speech by one of the US commanders. "At this point I don&#39;t care about collateral damage, if you have to rubble every building do so".

In an interview afterwards, he said simply, war is nasty, those who believe it can be conducted in a surgical and pin point way don&#39;t know what they are talking about. The nastier the war, the quicker it is over. (presumably because everyone is dead).

The interviews with the Iraqis were also interesting, we are going to have our work cut to make something of this. I am not saying we will fail but I repeat what I said elsewhere, it is going to take a lot more lives and money to fix this mess.

[J'Pol]

It is a pity that Lord Hutton went to all of this bother.

There seems to have been little point in him and his staff going to such lengths, when the public reaction appears to be, nah we don&#39;t believe it anyway.

Prejudice and preconceptions over evidence and analysis. It strikes me that people wanted to see certain findings, they have not so they choose to ignore them.

For anyone who is truly interested here is the actual website.

The Hutton Inquiry

Remember this inquiry was into the circumstances of Dr Kelly&#39;s death. Everything else only relates insofar as it had some effect on his death.

[Biggles]

J&#39;Pol

I think also there is a sense, having read fair chunks of the text that he was not wholly uncritical of the Government and the MoD in particular. It is just that the form of the words is somewhat muted.

I see some of the Government are saying it would have perhaps been better if these criticisms had been articulated more clearly as it would have made the report feel more balanced. I believe what they are saying is, that if they had taken more stick in the report they would be getting less now from the public. This may be fair comment.

There is a growing sense that the Hutton report could be extremely damaging to the Government precisely because it appears to exonerate them. An odd twist if ever there was one. I look forward to Bremner Bird and Fortune tonight.
I particularly enjoy the Long John interviews.

[J'Pol]

Originally posted by Biggles@1 February 2004 - 17:02

I see some of the Government are saying it would have perhaps been better if these criticisms had been articulated more clearly as it would have made the report feel more balanced. I believe what they are saying is, that if they had taken more stick in the report they would be getting less now from the public. This may be fair comment.

In essence Lord Hutton would have been doing them a favour had he been more harsh.

Perhaps he was reporting his findings in an honest manner, using language he felt appropriate. A rare thing in this day and age, where spin seems more important than substance.

Do you feel he may have indulged in a bit of the spinning himself. Reporting the facts, but in such a way as to convey a favourable (or at least not unfavourable) message.

If the latter is the case, then it backfired badly. Or perhaps he wanted the Government in a bad light, so he exonerated them totally, expecting this very reaction from the public.

Machiavellian or what.

[Biggles]

I suspect the difficulty lies with the very narrow remit of Hutton&#39;s brief. A remit which was decided by the PM.

Mr. Campbell wrote many letters to the BBC on other issues, some of which were not borne out by later facts (such as Railtrack, the dodgy dossier, Uranium from Africa etc.,) The BBC had started to treat his regular admonishments with little more than a raised eyebrow. In a broader based enquiry, details such as this would have been included as part of the overall backdrop.

However, it will now play itself out in media. As elections are a couple of years away it is difficult to determine what the long term effects will be. If there are no more difficulties then it may subside. If Iraq is still a festering sore in two years time and domestic policies are creaking then it will be tricky for them.

Although the thought of Howard at the reins does not give a warm feeling.